


Death Stranding

by joidianne4eva



Category: The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Implied Child Death, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2018-09-18 15:21:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9390713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joidianne4eva/pseuds/joidianne4eva
Summary: “I don’t like to think about it but if I didn’t have you all…”“You would live,” Cougar cut in and Jensen sucked in a breath.Cougar was right, he’d live.He’d live because he couldn’t do anything else but he wouldn’t do it alone.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to Cougars_catnip for the beta!
> 
> This was heavily influenced by the death stranding trailer hence the title.

There was a scar just beneath Cougar’s collarbone. It was a small innocuous thing especially amongst Cougar’s other scars but something about it kept drawing Jensen’s eye.

It was a sharp incision, one that almost looked like a cross and Jensen wondered what they’d had to dig out of Cougar’s body to cause it.

“Maybe if you weren’t so fucking obsessed with skin care if wouldn’t bother you,” Roque groused when Jensen brought it up but Jensen just flipped him off.

“Don’t hate on my baby-soft skin, Roquie-bear. You know that’s not the reason you should feel threatened,” Jensen taunted, grabbing at his crotch to emphasize his point.

Pooch snorted, yanking his things out of the way when Roque tried to climb over the table to get to Jensen.

It wasn’t until much later that Jensen noticed that Cougar hadn’t actually told them where he’d gotten the scar but Jensen did catch him looking at the thing, his brows furrowed as his finger ghosted over the mark.

Jensen didn’t ask again because anything that made Cougar frown was on the do-not-go-there list. Jensen had personally made that list and hammered into everyone’s heads because he had a vested interest in Cougar’s happiness.

*O*

“Baby brother, I know you’re in here!”

Hearing Jazmine before you saw her was a thing…a terrifying thing when one took into consideration the fact that hearing her before you saw her never actually meant getting away from her.

Jensen still made a good attempt at it though, which was why he was half out of the window when a hand grabbed his ankle and he definitely didn’t scream.

“Don’t make me hobble you, Jake,” Jazmine hissed and she would too.

Sliding back through the window Jensen beamed at his sister like he hadn’t just tried to climb out of a freaking window to get away from her.

Jazmine smiled right back because she was evil incarnate.

Seeing her now, Jensen couldn’t believe that Jazmine had almost kicked the bucket as a kid but apparently she had.

She’d been born premature with a list of ailments longer than her body and on the day that Jensen came screaming into the world Jazmine had taken a tumble from her cot that smashed her head open.

There was nothing left to show of either the fall or her prior ailments, nothing except a tiny mark just behind her ear.

Jensen had seen the thing only once but he remembered the raised bed of white emblazoned across Jazmine’s skin. Every time he thought about the scar he sent up a quick thanks to whoever had been watching out for his big sister because he loved her…even if she was insane.

*O*

Roque’s scar was almost lost against the backdrop of the knife slash that dominated the man’s left leg and honestly Jensen probably wouldn’t have noticed it but he’d been the one to stitch Roque up. He remembered every pull of the thread against Roque’s skin, he remembered the feeling of Roque’s fingers wrapped tight around Jensen’s ankle, squeezing rhythmically each time the needle pierced his skin.

Jensen remembered the blood and the way that if felt like he’d never get it all off his hands.

Every moment of that day was tattooed into his brain but he didn’t remember that scar.

*O*

“The hell are you doing, J?” Pooch grumbled as Jensen tugged at his clothes but Jensen wasn’t going to let Pooch scare him off because he could smell chocolate on the man and Pooch knew that no one brought chocolate on base without offering it up to Cougar like a sacrifice.

If Cougar found out that chocolate had been eaten and he hadn’t had any of it, things could get pretty nasty pretty damn quick which usually boiled down to a pissed off Cougar and that usually led to a severe drought in nookie supply for Jensen so yes, he was willing to strip search Pooch if he had to.

Pooch snorted as Jensen’s fingers shifted over his ribs and Jensen’s eyes narrowed, his senses homing in on the sound like a shark that had scented blood in the water.

Before he could act on his urge, Pooch slapped a bar of chocolate into his hand, scooting away from Jensen as he readjusted his clothes.

“You’re fucking crazy, you know that?” Pooch muttered, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck.

Jensen just grinned, his gaze locked on the small raised mark on the palm of Pooch’s hand.

*O*

Clay’s scar was the easiest to find, it snaked across the man’s bicep, too big to be hidden by the tattoo it was entangled with.

“How’d you get that?” Jensen had asked him once when he was green and fresh, when he’d just started to realize that his team leader was willing to go to hell and back for them.

Clay had shrugged, glancing at the thing with a small smile, “I’ve always had it,” he’d admitted and something in Jensen’s chest had shifted at the words but he wasn’t sure what it was.

*O*

Jensen was going to write a strongly worded letter to the person in charge of their safe houses because this one was even more shit than the last and that was saying something.

The good thing was that they were used to it and if Jensen stared at his computer long enough he could almost pretend he hadn’t seen that roach on the far wall.

The place had even killed his fucking libido.

“Whale beaching in Florida,” Pooch read and Jensen squinted at the crumpled paper that the man was holding…he was pretty sure that it was out of date but if it got Pooch’s mind off the fact that their shack was about two puffs away from falling down on their heads then Jensen wasn’t complaining.

“That shit always freaked me out as a kid,” Roque muttered. “Never got why they’d do it.”

“Loads of reasons,” Jensen piped up, stomping down on the moving spot just by his boot and the crunch it made had him grinning dementedly. “Sometimes they’re sick, sometimes they’re scared, people have even been blaming the navy for most of it…”

“Fucking Navy,” Clay groused. Clay’s hatred of the Navy was legendary so Jensen just ignored him.

“I like the idea of connection the most,” he continued. “Like they can’t live without each other.”

“So if one of them kills itself all the others do? That shit’s dark, J,” Pooch frowned. Jensen wasn’t surprised about that. Out of all of them Pooch had the most to go back to…Jensen also noted the fact that the man didn’t say that he wouldn’t do it.

Beneath Jensen’s skin something moved and it felt good.

*O*

Jensen spent the formative years of his childhood being absolutely freaked out by navels.

He’d never had one, or he had but the doctors had had to sew his shut as a baby, something about a tear and yadda, yadda. Jensen never really paid attention to the entire thing. His dad liked to joke that it was because Jensen had been self-sustaining even in the womb.

It didn’t change the fact that when he’d seen Jazmine’s navel at the tender age of three, he’d run screaming.   

*O*

Jensen didn’t think about his own body much. He knew that it was a good one; he’d worked hard at it to make sure that his muscles matched his brain because he was a big fan of being able to back up what he said.

But other than its usefulness, Jensen didn’t really consider himself much.

He didn’t think about the way that his fingers twitched sometimes, a livewire of current shooting through his hands, forcing them to curl into fists until it stopped.

He didn’t think about the phantom touches that ghosted along his spine when he was still enough to feel them over the other stimuli that life threw at him.

He didn’t think about the fact that if he held his breath he could hear someone else breathing, for him…with him.

He definitely didn’t think about the hard mass that stirred just behind the scar that covered most of his abdomen.

*O*

“I don’t like to be alone,” Jensen whispered, pressing his face against Cougar’s neck, his body coiled so close to Cougar’s that he could feel the man’s heartbeat like it was in his own chest.

“No,” Cougar agreed, sharp and to the point. It was one of the reasons why Jensen loved him because Cougar took Jensen at face value, never questioning his wants or motivations.

“I don’t like to think about it but if I didn’t have you all…”

“You would live,” Cougar cut in and Jensen sucked in a breath.

Cougar was right, he’d live.

He’d live because he couldn’t do anything else but he wouldn’t do it alone.

*O*

Jensen was grounded with a sprained ankle when his team went AWOL.

He didn’t need the Colonel that they’d sent to tell him what had happened. He’d felt it like a boot to the gut and he barely made it to the toilet before he heaved, bile clawing at his throat and making his head spin as he choked.

The thing in his stomach writhed, sending spasm after spasm wracking his body.

When it was over Jensen collapsed on the floor, ignoring the wetness soaking the front of his shirt.  He didn’t have to see it to know what was there after all this wasn’t the first time it had happened.

The scar beneath his collarbone bled the most but it always did because Cougar was the heart of them all and as the heart he hurt the most.

Switching on the shower, Jensen watched as a few drops of blood dripped from the faucet to join the water thundering against the tiles. The water stung the palm of his hand but the pain was grounding.

Stripping his shirt off Jensen balled it up and used it to mop at his bicep as he swayed, light headed from the ache radiating not from his ankle but from the wound that had opened on his left leg.

He’d have to burn his clothes and clean up the rest but his mind wasn’t focused on that.

Stepping beneath the spray, Jensen bent his head and glanced at the scar on his stomach, watching as it unfolded like a petal, the exposed muscles bulging for a moment and Jensen closed his eyes because he’d watched it happen once and once was enough to never want to see it again.

He stayed in the shower until the only thing slipping down the drain was water.

*O*

Jensen hadn’t needed the colonel who came to tell him that his team had gone off the grid for a few hours but he appreciated the sentiment.

“They’re all fine now but Frank called in a favor, something about making sure you didn’t freak out and do anything stupid,” Colonel Matthews muttered, eying Jensen suspiciously. “I’m taking it that you won’t be doing anything stupid, son?”

Jensen beamed at the man, “Scout’s honour,” he promised “I won’t even scare the cherries.”

The Colonel narrowed his eyes for a moment before sighing and standing. “You boys are the type of crazy that I have nightmares about,” he murmured to himself as he walked away leaving Jensen in an empty house…a house that breathed.

Beneath Jensen’s feet four sets of drums held a steady beat and the thing in his stomach didn’t so much as twitch.

*O*

“I don’t want to sound creepy but I don’t think I could handle it if any of you left me,” Jensen told Cougar as they sat on the porch of their new safe house.

“Can’t stop death,” Cougar pointed out, a wry smile twisting the corner of his lips.

Jensen didn’t say anything to that; instead he let his gaze shift from Cougar to the sea. The waves crashed against the sand violently and Jensen could almost taste the salt from where he sat.

“What do you think whales think about when they beach?” Jensen asked after a long moment and Cougar tilted his head, squinting at him from beneath the brim of his hat.

The question in the man’s gaze was plain and Jensen had always been good at translating Cougar’s non-speech so he answered.

“I think they think about how lonely it’d be to be the only one left behind.”

Cougar hummed beneath his breath at that and Jensen let the silence twist between them as he watched Cougar thumb at the scar just beneath his collarbone.

From where he sat, Jensen could almost feel the touch on his own skin…almost.


	2. Forget The Horror (Here)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cougar dreamed of a house by the sea. He dreamed of dipping his toes into the water as Jensen held his hand. 
> 
> “Do you still think of the whales?” he asked and Jensen glanced at him, taking in the dark eyes he loved and the darker things that writhed behind those eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every time there's a death stranding trailer expect another one of these, lol. 
> 
> Huge thanks to Cougars_catnip for the read through.
> 
> Please note the warnings.

Jensen wasn’t opposed to change, he just liked a little bit of a heads up, it wasn’t too much to ask of the universe, yet here he was, stuck in a godforsaken town while the pieces of his team splintered around him.

It wasn’t the first time they’d almost imploded but this time there was blood on their hands and it wasn’t of their own making.

Someone had stolen everything from them and left them floundering so Jensen didn’t blame Clay for grabbing the first piece of wood in the water.

He did blame Clay for not seeing that his log was actually a croc in disguise.

It hadn’t even taken Jensen long to find out who Aisha really was…it should’ve but Aisha’s dreams burned with her hatred. It made the thing in Jensen’s stomach unfurl, tendrils reaching out in a way that he wasn’t familiar with.

His stomach hurt every time he saw Aisha and he wondered if she thought that the look in his eyes was lust or hunger.

*O*

Unlike Aisha, Pooch’s dreams were a juxtaposition of fire and ice and Jensen slithered between the cracks eking out a place close enough to feel Pooch’s heartbeat.

It…he…they curled there, watching Pooch watch Jolene stand over a casket too small to house a fully grown man. She was smiling even as tears dripped down her face, the droplets splashing red against the white of the coffin.

Jensen wondered if Pooch could hear the screaming.

*O*

Pooch was the easiest to approach, not because of his dreams but because he wore his heart on his sleeve. Pooch wanted to go home; he wanted to go home to Jolene, to his unborn baby.

“She’s a problem,” Jensen breathed, heels resting on one of the old buckets that functioned as their chairs. “She’s all about going after Max and I get that. I want that fucker in the ground just as much as any of you but this place...it’s killing us.”

Pooch exhaled slowly, his fingers moving in his pocket and Jensen didn’t need to see to know that Pooch was holding the only picture of Jolene he had left.

Beneath his chest, the thing shifted, it was too far away from Jolene, too far to create the connection that Jensen needed with a child whose heart had barely started to beat on its own.

Jensen forced it down, tamped down on the yearning as he focused on Pooch.

“I don’t trust her,” Pooch whispered, “We want the same thing but I don’t trust what she’ll want after that.”

“I feel you,” Jensen hummed, glancing up at the cracks in the ceiling.

A flicker of a shadow had him sighing. It wasn’t a victory yet but it was a start.

*O*

“I know I’m not supposed to say bad things about ladies but can I just say that I wouldn’t stop you if you wanted to put a little dot right between those eyes,” Jensen mused, fingers stroking through Cougar’s hair.

Cougar snorted, shoving at Jensen’s shirt so that he could spread ice cold fingers across his stomach.

Jensen didn’t flinch but it was a close thing.

He did glower at Cougar, not that the man cared.

“You wanna keep your icicles to yourself?” he huffed, his actions belying his words as he tugged Cougar closer, yanking the thin sheet over them both.

Despite the sweltering heat of the day, the nights were surprisingly cold and Cougar had just gotten off his shift at the factory.

He wasn’t as tense as he usually was but that didn’t mean it had been a good shift.

“No,” Cougar muttered and Jensen cocked a brow because he was fairly sure that Cougar was responding to both his statements.

“No you won’t shoot her for me? Not even if I say pretty please?” Jensen teased, lips curling up into a smirk when Cougar pushed himself up, the sheets pooling around his hips as he straddled Jensen. “I like where this is going, in a completely abstract way because I know you’re too tired to even think of getting it up.”

Cougar’s raised brow said just how much he appreciated Jensen’s guess.

“So no shooting her then?” Jensen sighed and Cougar’s lips twitched into a small smile that had heat pooling in Jensen’s gut.

“No,” Cougar confirmed, his fingers stroking the air just above Jensen’s chest and not for the first time Jensen wondered if Cougar could see them, the lines that kept them connected, the veins running from Jensen’s core that looped and twisted around each of them.

Even now he could feel Roque’s anger waning as liquor replaced his thoughts.

He could feel Pooch’s sorrow, crackling bright like a bonfire.

He could almost taste Clay’s desperation and under it all there was Cougar’s certainty, his utter faith in Jensen and whatever plan he came up with.

“No shooting,” Cougar whispered, the words ghosting over Jensen’s lips as he dipped down and when Jensen pressed up into the kiss he could taste something else…something he couldn’t put his finger on.

*O*

Roque dreamed of soft sheets and cool winds.

He dreamed of climbing high, so high in a tree that never ended and Jensen climbed with him, standing on the old broken branch that creaked beneath their weight.

Somewhere down below them a man slammed a door and fell to his knees, hunched around a single photograph of a smiling woman and a boy that looked like the Roque by Jensen’s side.

Roque started to climb again, small fingers gripping the parts of Jensen that he called his own and they swarmed over him, bringing them higher and higher until they couldn’t hear the man’s screams of grief.

*O*

Jensen found Roque where he always was, trying to climb into a bottle.

Roque’s eyes were bloodshot when Jensen dropped down onto the stool beside him.

“What do you want?” he spat but Jensen kept his eyes on the bar, signalling for the bartender to bring him a shot of whiskey.

He didn’t turn to Roque until the liquid had burned a path from his throat to his chest.

“I want to go home,” he responded and Roque snarled, his finger tightening around his bottle. “I want to sleep in my own bed; I want stop waiting for the other shoe to drop and I want you to put the fucking bottle down and act like the man I know you are.”

Roque slammed the bottle against the counter; loud enough to catch the attention of the bartender but Jensen waved the man off, Roque’s fury curdling in the pit of his stomach like spoiled milk.

“Look, we’re in a pickle here and I know Clay thinks he knows what he’s doing but he really doesn’t… not with her.”

“And you think I don’t know that?” Roque hissed. “He’s gonna get us killed but he won’t listen.”

“And he doesn’t need to listen,” Jensen smiled, tapping his fingers against the wooden top, keeping beat with Roque’s heart. “I think I can get us out of this but I need your help and I need Clay to not know what we’re doing.”

“We?” Roque snorted but Jensen didn’t laugh because Roque’s hope was like a butterfly, just as short-lived and twice as fragile.

“We,” he confirmed, gesturing to where Pooch was sitting at a table at the edge of the bar.

Jensen didn’t need to turn to know that Cougar was at the pool table but Roque’s eyes scanned the room until he found him and the bits of Jensen that was and had always been Roque settled like a frightened animal that had finally been soothed.

“What do you need me to do?” Roque asked and Jensen grinned.

*O*

Jensen woke to blood on his tongue and screams in his ears. He blinked once then again but the hand in his stomach didn’t move though Cougar’s dark eyes dropped down to it like he wasn’t quite sure how he’d gotten there.

“Cougs,” Jensen whispered, watching as the things stretched and slithered around Cougar’s arm, the gaping hole in his gut pulsing slowly and the sheets beneath him was wet with something that wasn’t just sweat.

“Cougar,” Jensen tried again and this time Cougar met his eyes but there was something else there, something like the thing he’d tasted on Cougar’s tongue.

It tasted like death and birth, like the beginning and the end.

“Never leave,” Cougar whispered, his fingers clawing deeper as Jensen’s body jerked, veins swarming over Cougar’s hand like vines.

“Never leave,” Cougar begged and Jensen gasped awake.

He blinked in the darkness, listening to Cougar breathe deeply beside him.

Beneath his chest their heartbeats pulsed and he pressed his hand to it.

He’d never leave…never ever.

*O*

Clay’s dream was a graveyard. Each tombstone his own even though the bodies beneath weren’t and Jensen walked with him as he moved amongst them.

He wouldn’t ask when Clay woke if he knew what had happened to Aisha, he wouldn’t ask because he could feel her beneath his feet, buried like so many of Clay’s ghosts and they never talked about the dead.

*O*

Clay didn’t meet any of their eyes as he slunk into the safe house and they let him.

Keeping quiet as he pulled himself together and in the silence Jensen collected their breaths, their heartbeats and their dreams.

In the silence, Jensen waited because they were going home.

*O*

Cougar dreamed of a house by the sea. He dreamed of dipping his toes into the water as Jensen held his hand.

“Do you still think of the whales?” he asked and Jensen glanced at him, taking in the dark eyes he loved and the darker things that writhed behind those eyes.

“A little bit,” he admitted with a shrug. “Not as much as I used to but sometimes it pops back in my head, you know?”

Cougar nodded, his eyes on the water. “I will never leave.”

Jensen didn’t grin but it was a close thing. “I know,” he whispered and Cougar hummed as the things between them pulsed, satiated for now.


End file.
